1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to garden tools, and more particularly pertains to a garden tool designed for manuallY cultivating and tilling garden soil. Various types of manual and motorized devices have been developed for tilling the soil. The manual devices frequently require a great deal of effort to use and are of only limited effectiveness. The motorized devices such as roto-tillers are expensive and somewhat dangerous to operate. The manual tools developed in the prior art require a swinging or chopping motion in order to break the surface of the soil. The present invention overcomes this problem by providing a simple inexpensive manual tool having a specially configured sharpened cutting edge for plowing or shaving the ground in an easily performed reciprocating motion.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various types of garden tools are known in the prior art. A typical example of such a garden tool is to be found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,239,316, which issued to S. Svendsen on Sept. 4, 1917. This patent a weeding tool having a cutting blade secured adjacent one end of an elongated handle. The cutting blade is formed by a plurality of adjacent triangular shear blades lying in a common plane. U.S. Pat. No. 2,085,382, which issued to W. Nebor on June 29, 1937, discloses a snow shovel having a corrugated sinusoidal blade. U.S. Pat. No. 2,331,414, which issued to J. Morres on Oct. 12, 1943, discloses a garden tool having a cutting blade secured adjacent one end of an elongated handle. The cutting blade includes a plurality of triangular adjacent teeth extending in a common plane lying generally transverse to the longitudinal axis of the handle. U.S. Pat. No. 2,945,543, which issued to F. Beyer on July 19, 1960, discloses a garden tool having a pivotal U-shaped cutting blade secured at one end of an elongated handle. The U-shaped cutting blade includes a plurality of sequential adjacent perpendicular intersecting facets. The ridge lines formed by the intersecting facets extend generally transverse to the longitudinal axis of the handle. U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,320, which issued to R. Hiss on Oct. 25, 1983, discloses an edging tool having a planar cutting blade secured adjacent one end of an elongated handle. The cutting blade has a leading edge provided with a plurality of scalloped-type serrations formed by co-planar edges intersecting at a 90 degree angle.
While the above mentioned devices are suited for their intended usage, none of these devices are capable of tilling garden soil to a significant depth utilizing an efficient plowing or shaving reciprocating motion. Additionally, none of the aforesaid devices disclose the novel cutting blade configuration of the present invention which utilizes a blade formed by a plurality of adjacent teeth each formed by a pair of perpendicular facets intersecting at a ridge line extending generally parallel to the longitudinal axis of an attached handle. Inasmuch as the art is relatively crowded with respect to these various types of garden tools, it can be appreciated that there is a continuing need for and interest in improvements to such garden tools, and in this respect, the present invention addresses this need and interest.